Shakespeare the Boy: With Sketches of the Home and School Life, Games and Sports, Manners, Customs and Folk-lore of the TimeRolfe, W. J. (William James)
History
Shakespeare the Boy: With Sketches of the Home and School Life, Games and Sports, Manners, Customs and Folk-lore of the Time
Rolfe, W. J. (William James)
Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 -- Childhood and youth
These parochial processions were kept up after the Reformation.
In 1575 a form of devotion for the "Rogation Days of Procession"
was prescribed, "without addition of any superstitious ceremonies
heretofore used"; and it was subsequently ordered that the curate
on such occasions "shall admonish the people to give thanks to God
in the beholding of God's benefits," and enforce the scriptural
denunciations against those who remove their neighbors' landmarks.
Izaak Walton tells how the pious Hooker encouraged these annual
ceremonies: "He would by no means omit the customary time of
procession, persuading all, both rich and poor, if they desired
the preservation of love and their parish rights and liberties,
to accompany him in his perambulation; and most did so: in which
perambulation he would usually express more pleasant discourse
than at other times, and would then always drop some loving and
facetious observations, to be remembered against the next year,
especially by the boys and young people; still inclining them, and
all his present parishioners, to meekness and mutual kindnesses
and love, because love thinks not evil, but covers a multitude of
infirmities."
"And so," remarks Mr. Knight, after quoting this passage,
"listening to the gentle words of some venerable Hooker of
his time, would the young Shakespeare walk the bounds of his
native parish. One day would not suffice to visit its numerous
gospel-trees. Hours would be spent in reconciling differences among
the cultivators of the common fields; in largesses to the poor; in
merry-making at convenient halting-places. A wide parish is this
of Stratford, including eleven villages and hamlets. A district of
beautiful and varied scenery is this parish--hill and valley, wood
and water.... For nearly three miles from Welcombe Greenhill the
boundary lies along a wooded ridge, opening prospects of surpassing
beauty. There may the distant spires of Coventry be seen peeping
above the intermediate hills, and the nearer towers of Warwick
lying cradled in their surrounding woods.... At the northern
extremity of the high land, which principally belongs to the estate
of Clopton, and which was doubtless a park in early times, we have
a panoramic view of the valley in which Stratford lies, with its
hamlets of Bishopton, Little Wilmecote, Shottery, and Drayton. As
the marvellous boy of the Stratford Grammar School then looked
upon that plain, how little could he have foreseen the course of
his future life! For twenty years of his manhood he was to have no
constant dwelling-place in that his native town; but it was to be
the home of his affections. He would be gathering fame and opulence
in an almost untrodden path, of which his young ambition could
shape no definite image; but in the prime of his life he was to
bring his wealth to his own Stratford, and become the proprietor
and the contented cultivator of the loved fields that he now saw
mapped out at his feet. Then, a little while, and an early tomb
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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